Debra Perry is a senior financial services professional with broad executive and board level experience in financial analysis, risk oversight and corporate governance. Ms. Perry has served on the boards of four NYSE listed companies and two mutual fund complexes, chairing audit, compensation and governance committees. She has also served as a trustee and advisory board member in the public policy and higher education arenas. Over her business career, she was a senior executive at Moodys, the bond-rating agency, and held fixed income research and capital market positions in New York, Paris and London with First Boston and Chemical Bank.
Ms. Perry currently serves on the board of Korn/Ferry International, the leadership and talent consulting company where she chairs the Audit Committee, and on the board of PartnerRe, a Bermuda-based provider of risk-assumption solutions for the global insurance and capital markets where she also chairs the audit committee. In 2011, she joined the board of trustees of the BofA Funds Series Trust, a money fund complex where she serves as the boards liaison on the implementation of money fund reform, and the board of the Sanford C. Bernstein Fund, Inc., where she chairs the Governance Committee.
From 2004-2008, she served on the board of MBIA, the largest financial guaranty insurance company. Following the early impact of the financial crisis on the company and its recapitalization, she was asked by the board to serve as a consultant to its Credit Risk Committee to refine and implement the companys risk strategy as part of its five-year transformation plan.
From 2004-2011, Ms. Perry served on the board of Conseco, Inc., now CNO Financial Group, a life and health insurer that had recently emerged from bankruptcy with a new management team and new board selected to rebuild the company. During her tenure, the board oversaw the restructuring and recapitalization of the company. She chaired the Human Resources & Compensation Committee of the board.
Until her retirement from Moodys in 2004, Ms. Perry managed several ratings divisions, served as Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) and had primary responsibility for executing the spin-off of Moodys from the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation and for building the public company infrastructure. In her line management roles, she managed an unusually wide range of rating groups covering financial institutions, industrial companies, and US municipal issuers. Following the defaults of Enron and WorldCom, she led the recalibration of $3 trillion of corporate debt ratings and introduced numerous enhancements to Moodys fundamental analysis, including a focus on the quality of issuers corporate governance and public financial reporting.
In addition to her work as a board member, Ms. Perry is a trustee of the Committee for Economic Development (CED), the nonpartisan business-led public policy organization that recently merged with The Conference Board. She co-chairs CEDs subcommittee on Womens Economic Contribution. She is also a member of the Economic Club of New York, the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), the International Corporate Governance Network and Women
